Know your investee better
Personality profiling for due diligence

Gallup CliftonStrengths® is a market-proven psychometric assessment with a strong multi-decade track record. It is primarily used for personal development and career coaching. The HBM Alpha Returns Program™ translates it in a new, proprietary way through the lens of experienced institutional investors. It is finely tuned to provide stunningly accurate and predictive insights into the likely conduct of the individuals and teams that you invest in.

The HBM Alpha Returns Program™ includes a report containing: A graphic overview of the team’s strengths and gaps Summary of the team’s strengths, from the perspective of investors Summary of the team’s weaknesses, from the perspective of investors Summary of the team’s blind spots, and what remedial action might be required Depending on specific weightings you provide, an adjusted report on the above three elements Individual report on each team members strengths, weaknesses and blind spots in accordance with our proprietary evaluation

Most people think they are good at sizing people up. They think they are good at reading them, making a judgment call. And it's true that some people have a special knack for understanding the unique characteristics and personality traits of people they meet. But not everybody does, and while this ability is clearly valuable in personal relationships, it is essential in business relationships – especially where your or your organization’s money is involved, and a fiduciary duty comes into play. The HBM Alpha Returns Program™ makes the intangible tangible, the subjective objective, it gives you, the investor, the ability to communicate clearly to your board or investment committee the relative strengths of a team, as well as areas that need to be watched or remedied. Moreover, making the HBM Alpha Returns Program™ an integral part of your due diligence process allows you to compare different teams in your investment portfolio using objective measures, and over time allows you to correlate certain team qualities to top-quartile or top-decile investment success.

You can use the HBM Alpha Returns Program™ in five ways: Receive: It is sent to you – not the team you are evaluating Resolve: You can decide whether to invest in the team or not Refine: You can have a granular, honest conversation with the investee team about your expectations, where potential shortfalls are, and what strengths they need to apply to meet them. This conversation can be conducted by you in private, or expertly facilitated by us Remediate: During your annual investment review the HBM Alpha Returns Program™ helps you measure the team’s progress, with remedial action taken where required Revise: The Evaluation can be updated as existing team members leave and new members join

Psychological evaluations of various kinds are of course not uncommon in hiring senior professionals. However, the use of psychometric evaluations of teams and individuals within teams in the investment management industry, as part of the pre-investment due diligence toolkit, is less common because they tended to be expensive, cumbersome to interpret, and required expertise in investing beyond the realm of psychologists. In contrast, the HBM Alpha Returns Program™ is fast, easy, objective, cost-effective, and spot on. About the facilitators Facilitated by: Robert van Zwieten, immediate past CEO & President of the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association (now known as the Global Private Capital Association), the global industry association for private capital investors in emerging markets, and a former Director at Asian Development Bank responsible for its USD 1 billion portfolio of private equity fund investments; and Mark Laudi, CEO of Hong Bao Media, a Gallup-certified Advanced CliftonStrengths coach, and former CNBC television anchor